Do No Evil - My Fat Arse
- 26th Oct 2005
- Leave a Comment
Google Webaccelerator : http://webaccelerator.google.com/dc.html
So why is google pushing the MSI down my NECK !!!! on the download page we have this :
<!--
function dl() {
top.location='GoogleWebAcceleratorSetup.msi';
}
-->
</script>
</head>
<body topmargin="2" onload="dl()" alink="#ff0000" link="#0000cc"
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"
vlink="#800080">
so basically they fire a javascript ON Load at the MSI file…
DaveN say thats Evil !!
14 Comments | Leave a comment »
WTF is an MSI file?
it’s a windows installer file, not sure what the acronym stands for tho.
MSI = MicroSoft Installer..
Those filthy bastards….
you can say “dave you don’t have a fat arse” you know that don’t you
I’m not sure what your point is. If you go to http://webaccelerator.google.com/ and you don’t get the option to download GWA. You have to click on Learn More to get to http://webaccelerator.google.com/support.html
and then at that point you can click Download Google Web Accelerator, and you go to http://webaccelerator.google.com/index.html
which is the final page that gives you a “Download Now” button in bold.
Clicking the big “Download Now” button takes you to http://webaccelerator.google.com/dc.html where the download actually starts. It’s not like we’re foisting this off on people; it takes several clicks to get to the download page..
*cough*
“dave you don’t have a fat arse”
*cough*
I’m gonna take a different line here, and it’s semi in support of Google.
If you go to the web accelerator bandwidth and content thieving sign up page (and they call me a dirty spammer!) you then have to jump through a few hoops to get to the download. If you actually get that far then yuo are asking for the file to be downloaded and this eases the installation and download.
What would be more sensible is ensurnig you ONLY get there if you have jumped through those previous hoops. Google may have said the trial is closed but leaving the door open like this means it is not and IMHO they know that it will be linked to directly.
Oh and Dave. Of course your bum doesn’t look big in that dress :)
agreed jason and that was kinda my point.. due to the fact that they keep taking the homepage down people start linking to the DC page ..
DaveN
Okay so you don’t have a fat arse, but if Matt is right above - and he probably is - then the nice people@Google.corp are not exactly filthy bastards either.
Due to virus concerns and the like it’s very bad form to initiate an install like that (and an install is *not* the same as a download). So, it’s still a pretty stupid thing to do.
However, as it appears to be on a well hidden page my words before were too harsh. Still way too stupid (as in ignorant) to seem legit, but not directly evil, imho.
install now != download now
by taking the route of a POST transaction instead of displaying a normal link, a user does not have the option of “save link as”, which *would* be a download.
true, i can examine the page using view source and then use wget to retrieve the file, but this is more work than most users are willing to do, and more complicated than many users are able to handle.
it’s a prime example of web 2.0 ethics.
*off topic*
Does the Google Accellerator work well and are it worth installing?
Perhaps you should also be asking why IE should let this happen…